DOE launches survey on energy, water efficiency of sports venues

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) teamed up with the US Environmental Agency, the Green Sports Alliance and the National Institute of Building Sciences last March in an effort to better understand the challenges that sports venues face when trying to conserve water and energy.

A survey launched this week will help owners and operators of sports venues to better identify opportunities to decrease energy and water usage. The survey will also be used to create ENERGY STAR® scores and certifications that are specifically designed for sports venues.

A summary of the findings will be provided in late 2016 or early 2017. Potential ENERGY STAR® scores created from the information in the survey will be available no earlier than 2018.

Natural refrigerants gaining popularity in ice rinks

The launch of the DOE survey comes as the use of natural refrigerants for sports venues – especially ice rinks – has been gaining traction across the world.

At last week’s Gustav Lorentzen conference in Edinburgh, Energi & Kylanalys (EKA), the Swedish refrigeration consultants, noted that while the technology to use CO₂ for ice rinks has been around since the late 1990s, its use is just now beginning to gain popularity.

EKA states that there are 25-30 CO₂ ice rinks in the world, a majority of these being in Canada. While Europe has been slow to catch on to this trend, EKA installed Europe’s first CO₂ transcritical ice rink in Sweden in 2014, and the country now has five in total.

In the US, Canadian manufacturer CIMCO recently fitted an ammonia ice-rink at the T-Mobile NHL arena in Las Vegas. Additionally, CIMCO has added CO₂ to their ice rink portfolio, holding patents on the technology in Canada, and has patents pending in the US.

Please find further information on the DOE survey here.